The new actions, which include a second complaint to the U.S. International Trade Commission and a federal suit in Southern California, come on top of existing legal actions that date back to last year.

“We began actions against HTC in 2012 to end the unauthorized use of our proprietary innovations and technologies,” Nokia said. “Since then, despite the German courts confirming infringements of Nokia patents in HTC products, HTC has shown no intention to end its practices; instead it has tried to shift responsibility to its suppliers. We have therefore taken these further steps to hold HTC accountable for its actions.”

An HTC representative was not immediately available for comment.

Overall, Nokia has asserted 50 patents in its various complaints around the world, including nine that were added through the new actions.

Nokia’s litigation with HTC is just one of many patent disputes in the mobile world, a legal landscape that includes battles between Samsung and Apple, and between Microsoft and Google’s Motorola unit.

There have been some settlements in the industry of late, including a deal between HTC and Apple that was announced in November, and a number of licensing deals between Microsoft and various Android sellers.

Update: HTC said it will take a look at the latest legal papers.

“Upon receiving the official document, HTC is to consider all legal options to protect our rights,” the company said in a statement.

The International Trade Commission determined the technology Microsoft uses for wireless communication with the Xbox doesn’t infringed on a Motorola patent for wireless connectivity.

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While a majority of the 10-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit agreed that some of the patent claims in question were invalid, no more than five judges agreed on the legal rationale leading to that conclusion. The judges divided 5-5 on other claims.

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Facebook’s top lawyer Ted Ullyot is leaving the social networking giant, apparently to take some time off.

Facebook disclosed the departure today. Ullyot, 45, will be officially gone in July; the search for his replacement will include internal and external candidates.

As general counsel, Ullyot has presided over a myriad of new, unusual and sometimes controversial legal issues, including managing high-stakes and complex litigation that ranged from Facebook’s battle with the Winklevoss twins, to a patent fight with Yahoo to investor disgruntlement around its initial public offering.

And, of course, over privacy issues. In many ways, given the Silicon Valley company’s pioneering role in social networking, Ullyot has had to work in a relatively undiscovered landscape, which has also attracted a great deal of scrutiny from consumers, regulators and investors.

He started in the fall of 2008, and has managed all the legal aspects of the company and built up the team from 10 when Facebook was a startup to more than 70 as a public company. In that time, Facebook has grown from 500 people to 5,000 and from 100 million to over one billion active users.

It has certainly been a ride for him, from beating back the Winklevii over their allegations related to the founding of Facebook to settling the patent dispute with Yahoo to handling the Federal Trade Commission investigation and more.

It is not clear what he will do next, but sources said he does not have another job lined up as of yet.

It was his administration that came up with a plan to get Amazon.com and other out-of-state online retailers to start collecting state and local sales taxes from New York customers.

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The jury found the networking company guilty of “fraud by concealment” in its dealings with XpertUniverse. It also found that Cisco violated two of the smaller company’s patents, awarding additional damages to XpertUniverse of about $34,000.

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If truth be told, Jerry Yang never really disappeared from the Silicon Valley scene, even though he did leave Yahoo rather suddenly just over a year ago — resigning from the board and all other positions at the iconic company he co-founded with David Filo in 1995, and then going very quiet.

When I met him last week at the airy and newish office space of Ame Cloud Ventures, off Camino Real, he politely declined to talk about that Yahoo tenure and departure, although Yahoo and he are inextricably linked in the history of tech.

That’s because the former Chief Yahoo has moved onto the next stage of his career, which perhaps could be called Jerry 2.0 — a term he’d hate (and give me a hard time for using).

Still, in many ways, Yang has launched a new digital life by focusing on what made him interested in tech in the first place: Entrepreneurs.

“I feel like the thing I missed the most is what really early entrepreneurs were doing,” he said of his latest efforts, which have been well known among techies, even if Yang has never been one to toot his own horn much in general. “I’m not sure at all that I’m any good at this mentoring/investing business — that’s why I’m using my own money, and that’s why it’s not a career.”

Yet. Yang is calling his nascent investment business — he’s more than an angel, but not quite a VC — a “work in progress” that might morph into something more.

“There are no LPs — just me, myself and I,” said Yang. “I invest in things for the long term and have a long horizon and the flexibility.”

That said, via Ame — which means rain (雨) in Japanese and happens to be the acronym of the names of his wife and kids — Yang has already invested in about two dozen startups in which he has typically puts in $100,000 to $500,000.

Explaining the name, Yang said: “Without rain, there is no life.”

And it’s clear that Yang has been very busy dousing the startup sector with a wide range of interesting investments, including:

• dotCloud, an application platform for developers
• AeroFS, a private file syncing and sharing service
• Impermium, an Internet security offering
• Jetpac, a travel app for the Apple iPad
• Lex Machina, IP litigation data and analytics
• Tomfoolery, which is aimed at improving mobile enterprise apps

Yang said what informs his investment choices centers on the activity around mobility, sensors, cloud and big data that is enabling the next generation of computing.

“The main investing premise is the idea that devices are more and more network connected,” said Yang, who noted that data that is being collected is now at another order of magnitude than ever before. “The cloud has become the next-generation supercomputer, and the smartphone has provided the revolution to spur its use.”

To select from the companies he sees, Yang has only one young associate, Nick Adams, who codes, helps on deal mechanics, interacts with entrepreneurs and also has had extensive experience in Asia.

That has been important, since Adams also leads business development for China’s Cloud Valley, which is run by Edward Tian, one of Yang’s strategic partners there. It was with Cloud Valley that Evernote, the hot productivity app in which Yang is also an investor, partnered to create a business there.

Still, Yang is not completely alone. He has weekly meetings with another former Yahoo, Ash Patel — who started the $10 million micro-venture fund Morado Ventures, which means “purple” in Spanish, and has a lot of ex-Yahoos as investors — as well as individual angel and former Yahoo CTO Farzad Nazem.

The trio trade ideas and deal flow, sometimes making bets together and sometimes not. Most of all, they leverage their time in the tech sector, both good and bad.

“I might not have better ideas, but I think my experience is unique and helpful [to entrepreneurs] and there is a value to my network,” said Yang. “I think what I have to contribute, besides money and a network, is that I am very candid about the experience I have had.”

That is indeed the case, because it is clear that Yang has a lot of wisdom to impart from his long and eventful history at Yahoo, as well as his stature as one of the Internet’s most important pioneers.

And, having covered the often circumspect Yang for much of that time, I would have to say that these days he looks about as energized, excited and enthusiastic as I have ever seen him.

“I’m truly humbled by the talent that’s out there, and at the same time recognize it’s a very crowded space,” said Yang. “It is not a career yet, but I’m having a lot of fun, and we’ll see.”

The verdict from a jury in the U.S. court for Texas’ Eastern District dealt a serious blow to VirnetX, a Zephyr Cove, Nev., company that uses its patent portfolio to seek revenue from licensing fees or court judgments. Most of VirnetX’s revenue has come from a $200 million settlement reached with Microsoft Corp. in 2010, according to research firm ISI Group.

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Joshua Rosenkranz, the partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe who represented Facebook in its battle with the Winklevoss twins over their ownership stake and is currently representing Apple in its dispute with Google over the iPhone and iPad touchscreen patents, is now also helping to defend Kleiner, according to court documents.

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Dish Network alleged that the sports broadcaster violated an eight-year broadcast licensing agreement by offering more favorable rates to the satellite provider’s competitors. The agreement is set to expire later this year.

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The agreement brings an end to an unusual lawsuit brought last month by New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli on behalf of the New York State Common Retirement Fund. The lawsuit sought to force the wireless-technology company to disclose what it spends on political causes.

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A lawyer for Greenlight said the proposal improperly “bundles” three measures in violation of securities rules and said shareholders like the hedge-fund firm should be allowed to vote on the measures separately.

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In the response, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York Wednesday, Apple said the proxy proposal does not improperly bundle several provisions together, as Greenlight alleges. The filing states that bundling only occurs when “discrete, material proposals are combined in a manner that puts shareholders to an unfair choice.”

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Last year, several Facebook investors sued the company, arguing that Facebook — which had shared internal financial forecasts with certain analysts before the IPO — was also obligated to disclose those projections in regulatory filings.

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In a ruling issued late Monday, U.S. District Judge James F. Holderman held that the aggressive licensing strategy used by Innovatio IP Ventures LLC against Cisco customers is protected by the U.S. Constitution. Companies such as Innovatio, more formally known as patent-assertion entities, buy up patents and seek to earn money from them through licensing and litigation.

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I just received the following statement from a Cisco spokeswoman:

“We were surprised to learn that East Carolina University filed a complaint this morning. Cisco takes intellectual property rights very seriously, and we are confident that our new campaign does not create any confusion in the marketplace.”

Cisco is being sued in federal court by East Carolina University, the second-largest institution of higher learning in North Carolina (UNC is the biggest). ECU objects to Cisco’s use of the phrase in a branding campaign launched late last year.

ECU registered a trademark on the phrase in August of 2010. In its filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, it claims use of the phrase in connection with “education services in the nature of courses at the university level.”

Cisco registered to use it in December of 2012 for the following purposes:

Computer hardware and software; computer hardware and software for interconnecting, managing, securing and operating local and wide area networks and telephony systems; computer hardware and software for transmitting, securing, storing, uploading, posting, displaying, tagging, editing, organizing and processing data, audio and video; computer hardware and software for conferencing services; computer hardware and software for instant messaging and presence identification; telephones; wireless communications devices, namely, wireless hardware and software for the transmission of data, audio, and video; call processing software for the transmission of data, video, and audio; downloadable electronic instructional materials, namely, manuals, guides, test materials, and magazines in the field of technology; computer software for use in social networking; electronic devices and software for recording, organizing, transmitting, storing and/or reviewing voice, audio, video, and/or data files; routers; switches; computer network adapters; computer servers; communications servers; computer hardware containing network security functionality, including firewalls, data encryption, and/or interoperability with network security protocols; set-top boxes.

Proving infringement generally means proving that the use of a trademark hurts the ability of one party who has registered for the right to use it will be compromised or that the marketplace will be confused. While ECU was certainly the first one — two prior trademark registrations, including one dating to 1995 by Time Warner, have been abandoned — Cisco will apparently argue in court that its use of the phrase to sell networking and computing gear shouldn’t be seen as interfering with the university’s ability to recruit students. Of course, that’s assuming the case ever gets that far.

Certainly ECU has the right and the duty to defend against the infringement of trademarks it owns. But here’s another consideration that can’t be discounted: ECU has by luck of the draw found an opportunity to sue one of the richest companies in the world.

Cisco had a combined $45 billion in cash and investments on its balance sheet at the close of its most recent quarter.

Meanwhile, ECU is a state school, and like most state institutions in the country, it’s facing a budget crunch. Chancellor Steve Ballard said the school is facing the “worst budget crisis in its history.” The school ran a $286 million operating loss in the 2011-2012 fiscal year. In 2011 the state of North Carolina cut ECU’s budget by 16 percent.

A successful trademark infringement lawsuit might just help close that budget gap. So would a settlement.

One big piece of that was a marketing and branding campaign launched at the end of 2012 at Cisco’s annual meeting with financial analysts in New York. Crossing the Web, TV, print and augmented reality, it featured the slogan “Tomorrow Starts Here.” Its intent has been to inject the importance of networking rather than computing as the most important aspect in the narrative of the Internet’s next phase of growth.

It turns out that Cisco is not the first to use that slogan, and the one that got to it first is steaming mad. North Carolina’s second-largest college, East Carolina University, based in Greenville, N.C., announced today that it has sued Cisco in federal court — it didn’t specify which court — for trademark infringement.

“ECU has used the mark ‘Tomorrow Starts Here’ for over a decade, including in national advertisements and publications such as Forbes and Wired,” the university’s chancellor, Steve Ballard, said in a statement. “We feel it is essential to take action to protect that defining trademark of our identity and vision.”

I’m not a lawyer, but from what I understand of trademark law, one of its cornerstone principles is that if you’re going to register a trademark, you have to be willing to defend it when someone uses it without your authorization, or you essentially give them permission to keep using it. So these cases are pretty routine.

But to prove infringement, you also have to prove that the use of the trademark is likely to cause consumer confusion. ECU makes a stab at a case in its press release announcing the suit:

ECU’s trademark “Tomorrow Starts Here” is a university-wide brand that represents an overlapping field of goods and services when compared with that of Cisco. For example, research initiatives through ECU’s College of Technology and Computer Science have created products and intellectual property that are actively being commercialized. ECU is also a leader in the field of distance education technology that is heavily promoted through ECU’s global online education program using the mark “Tomorrow Starts Here.”

A university supporting technology research and a networking giant selling routers, switches and cloud computing gear? Does that confuse you? My guess is that Cisco and ECU will in time come to a settlement. Cisco is flush with cash, something universities always need.

Here are two example videos, first Cisco’s, and then a sample from ECU. You be the judge. Are you confused?

Update: I initially called the college Eastern Carolina University. Sorry about that.

If the jury’s decision stands, the award would rank among the largest to date in a patent case.

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Last year, you may remember, Big Blue agreed to a $10 million fine to the SEC to settle a civil lawsuit charging that it paid bribes to government officials in China and South Korea during a period from 1998 to 2009.

Now the judge reviewing the settlement is demanding some onerous reporting requirements that the company says are too burdensome, according to a Bloomberg report. And the SEC is taking its side.

Judge Richard Leon (pictured from his Wikipedia bio), who has been reviewing the case for 22 months, says he wants IBM to report on a significantly wider range of issues, some of which aren’t connected to the substance of the original bribery complaint against it.

Most of the time, judges sign off on these settlements. Companies come clean and agree to show that they’re staying clean by not doing what they’ve been accused of. But apparently Leon’s blood is up over this. He has told IBM that he wants annual reports on its compliance with the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, the law that governs bribery overseas, and he wants the reports to cite all potential accounting violations. IBM has so far agreed only to report on matters related to bribery, which is what the original complaint is about. The next hearing is set for Feb 4.

In the original complaint, the SEC said that IBM made payments to “secure the sale of IBM products through IBM-Korea and LG-IBM’s business partners,” referring to IBM units in South Korea and China. IBM was accused of paying $207,000 in bribes to South Korean officials, including cash, gifts, travel and entertainment expenses and free computers.

In 1998, the SEC says, a territory manager for IBM-Korea met the head of operations for a South Korean government agency and gave him a shopping bag filled with 20 million Korean won, about $19,000. Over time, the same official received payments totaling about 80 million won, or about $76,000, by 2001. What did IBM supposedly get in return? Designation as a preferred supplier for mainframe computers, and an agreement to place orders at higher prices.

From 2004 through early 2009, it “engaged in a widespread practice of providing overseas trips, entertainment and improper gifts to Chinese government officials,” the SEC said, adding that the misconduct involved as many as 100 employees of IBM China.

In China, the SEC says, IBM China employees created what it describes as “slush funds” with local travel agencies that were used to pay the travel expense incurred by local government officials. Other slush funds, it says, were created with business partners to provide cash payments and gifts like cameras and notebook computers.

IBM is not alone in getting caught in these bribery cases. In August, Oracle, paid $2 million to settle an SEC case brought against it over allegations of misconduct in India. In 2010, Hewlett-Packard faced bribery charges in Russia, in a case that’s now being investigated by a court in Germany.

Their venture firm in the past decade made a big bet on clean technology. In the last couple of years, Kleiner has also put money into high-profile and fast-growing digital start-ups, but only after they were valued at $1 billion or more — a far cry from the firm’s traditional strategy of investing very early in young companies.

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The jury found that Apple’s iPhone infringed three patents related to mobile-device technologies owned by MobileMedia Ideas LLC. Two of those patents came to MMI from Nokia and the third from Sony.

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Calling from the U.K., Lynch said that he had been “ambushed” by HP’s accusations, and that he hasn’t been contacted in any official capacity by HP, its lawyers or anyone else; the first he heard about the accusations against Autonomy management was via the press release.

He went on to accuse HP of mismanaging Autonomy and essentially sabotaging its performance after the $11.7 billion acquisition closed. He said that once Autonomy was in the HP tent, HP managers arbitrarily added a 30 percent markup on Autonomy software, which had the effect of driving some longtime customers away. In other cases, Lynch said, HP salespeople were paid commissions to sell third-party products that competed with Autonomy, but no commissions to sell Autonomy products.

Below is a transcript of our conversation:

AllThingsD: Mike, thanks for the call. I presume you have a different view of events concerning the accusations leveled by HP against your former company, Autonomy.

Lynch: Basically, we reject completely the assertion of HP. It’s completely wrong. The reality of the situation is that when HP bought Autonomy it had hundreds of people involved in due diligence, which was described at the time as “meticulous.” And KPMG, Barclays and Perello were all involved there. And they’ve actually run it for a year. To somehow admit a $9 billion elephant in the room just beggars belief, frankly.

What do you think of the specifics of the allegations? There were hardware sales, sales of software to value-added resellers, and some concerning some subscription revenue that was booked incorrectly. Can you address any of the specifics?

I don’t know any of the specifics because no one has been in touch with us. We’ve not heard anything from any partner other than what’s been in the press release. It’s been a bit of an ambush. I don’t know what she’s referring to or why. Obviously, there are differences between IFRS [International Financial Reporting Standards] accounting and the U.S. GAAP system, but the fact is that all our financial information was given to Deloitte, which, unlike most European accounting firms, audited us every quarter. And consequently we’re confident in the numbers being right.

Do you anticipate being sued personally by HP, or investigated criminally in this matter? Have you retained counsel?

As I said, I’ve heard nothing from anyone, not even from HP. You’re the first person that has mentioned these to me. I completely and absolutely reject the suggestions. So let’s see some evidence and we’ll explain it from there. All we’ve done is gotten a press release. There haven’t been any of the lawyer letters that one might expect in a matter such as this.

The sad thing about this is that it’s a distraction. Having been on HP’s Executive Council, I walked into a company that was riddled with internecine warfare, and obviously Léo Apotheker and Shane Robison [HP's former chief strategy officer] had a strategy, which was about taking down certain parts of the business and divesting them. And obviously there was another one of those Hewlett-Packard coup d’etats. And Léo and Shane were out, and the other divisions became more powerful, and we obviously had a very hard time inside HP.

What you saw was a situation where hundreds of the Autonomy staff left — remember, it was a pretty small company with a small staff — they all left, and the senior management team left. There was significant mismanagement of the asset. So the quarter when the numbers at Autonomy went south was the quarter that HP took over and took over the sales process.

They did things like, if the customer had an enterprise sales agreement with Autonomy, they could no longer buy through Autonomy, they had to buy through HP’s Enterprise Services Group. And ES insisted on putting a 30 percent markup on the software. So, suddenly, established customers had to pay 30 percent more for that software. And that is just one of a long list of examples.

If an HP salesperson sold a competitive product, they got a commission. If they sold Autonomy, they didn’t. These are the kinds of internal issues that went on and greatly damaged the Autonomy business and led to a great number of the Autonomy staff leaving. Since the management team has left, it’s sad to see that the company’s prospects have deteriorated. And I guess that is what is behind this write-off.

It sounds like much of this goes back to the fundamental question of Léo Apotheker’s strategy. He wanted to move HP toward high-margin businesses like software and get out of low-margin hardware like PCs and printers.

There was a strategy which the board of directors had authorized Léo and Shane to carry out, and acquiring Autonomy was a key part of that decision. When they were ousted, the decision to divest the hardware business was reversed, and you had a very messy strategic situation.

Then it really comes down to questions of accounting, and you think it can all be properly explained.

If we are given the chance to explain it, it can all be properly explained. You will see that all the information was given to our auditors, who made the correct decisions under IFRS, I have no doubt.

Meg was on CNBC and on conference calls today, laying much of this at your door, if not directly, then by inference, reminding people that she let you go after Autonomy failed to make its numbers, and so forth. We’ve never heard the other side of that conversation. Can you give any insight into it?

Sadly, when these things happen one gets gagged. The reason why those numbers were low in that quarter was because of the switchover to HP managing the sales process. As I said, arbitrary markups were added on, and commissions were given to people to sell against Autonomy. And Autonomy deals were wrapped up into packages, which means that the normal course of selling software at the end of the quarter was defeated. So this is just an example of what went on, and what we’re really talking about is a company not understanding the software business. And not understanding an acquisition. I’m afraid it’s an ongoing situation. You saw it with Palm and with EDS. And the important thing about Autonomy is that it has a great history. Obviously, for the first two quarters the business was fine within HP until these management changes were put in place. There were silly things like divisions of HP refusing to sell Autonomy because it hadn’t been certified by them. This kind of internal bureaucracy and infighting going on there led to the staff leaving. Autonomy is the kind of company where the staff is really vital, and there were hundreds lost during that spring period. And then most of the senior management team left. By then, the company was so damaged, to the point where the numbers are not going to continue on the line that you would like them to.

HP says it was a member of your senior management team who came forward with these allegations. Do you know who that is, and can you name them?

No. Again, I have no idea what they’re talking about. I don’t believe any of the senior people are still there. So I’m afraid I’m in the dark.

Is it possible, then, from your point of view, that HP is trying to take a big charge, recalibrate its financial position and simply lay as much of the blame as possible on Autonomy?

I think the reality is that the business has not been managed in the last year. It’s not inconceivable that the business has gone down in value. The question here is about the amount. I suspect that every spare cent has been thrown into this write-down. Meg has spent the day talking about this, more than she has about delivering the worst results in HP’s 70-year history. HP needs to think more about the fundamental problems of its business. I hope they can rebuild what was once a great Silicon Valley company.

RELATED POSTS:

• More From Mike Lynch: HP’s Autonomy Accusations Are Getting Weaker
• Mike Lynch Punches Back at Today’s HP Filing: Whither $5B Writedown?
• HP Confirms DOJ Is Investigating Alleged Fraud in Autonomy Deal
• Yes, There Are Layoffs Pending at HP’s Autonomy Unit in the U.K.
• Former HP CEO Shifts Blame for Autonomy Deal to Chairman
• Dell Passed on Autonomy Before HP Bought It
• Why Mike Lynch Is Playing PR Hardball With HP
• Autonomy Founder Lynch Asks Board to Explain HP Allegations
• Autonomy Founder Lynch Blames Accounting Standards in HP Flap
• The Red Flags That Were Obvious — To Some — In the HP-Autonomy Deal
• Oracle’s Ellison Vindicated in Autonomy PR Flap by HP’s $8.8 Billion Writedown
• Autonomy Founder Mike Lynch Rejects HP Charges, Alleges Mismanagement
• What Exactly Happened at Autonomy?
• HP Explains Its $8.8 Billion “Oops”
• HP Beats Street Amid Sales Declines, Takes $8.8 Billion Charge
• HP Names Microsoft Exec Robert Youngjohns to Run Autonomy
• Search Under Way at HP for Autonomy’s Next Chief
• Autonomy’s Mike Lynch Talks About Being HP’s Speedy Tiger Cub (Video)
• Britain’s First Software Billionaire Now Reports to HP CEO Meg Whitman
• Oracle Launches Exalytics Machine, Probably Ending Spat With Autonomy
• Autonomy: When All Else Fails, Blame the Bankers
• Mike Lynch to Oracle: Oh, You Mean Those Slides
• Oracle: You Have a Very Bad Memory, Mr. Lynch
• HP Reportedly Close to $10 Billion Buyout of Autonomy, PC Unit Spinoff
• Will Oracle and Microsoft Bid on Autonomy?

First there are the technical issues. People requesting voting instructions by email are reporting that they’re receiving bounce-backs, and have been complaining about it on Twitter and Facebook. See these tweets I pulled from NJ.com’s Storify page. County offices are being overwhelmed with electronic requests, and can’t keep up with the demand in getting responses back to voters.

So the email ballot option in NJ isn’t working out so well. Emails are bouncing back due to full inboxes :-/ #Vote2012 #NJVote

November 6, 2012 10:00 am via TweetCaster for AndroidReplyRetweetFavorite

@EssDot323

Steph Boogs

@BrianLehrer @pollwatchusa #njvote I faxed&emailed vote by fax app 12am mon.No reply from Essex clerk.their inbox is now full&lines r busy

November 6, 2012 10:10 am via Twitter for iPhoneReplyRetweetFavorite

@Jemour

Dr. Jemour Maddux

disenfranchised thanks to Hudson County being 100% unprepared for Christie’s “email voting.” Thanks New Jersey. #NJVote

November 6, 2012 10:39 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@thetrashsalad

Abbey

They’re also going to have a hard time counting the electronic votes that do come in. Despite the state government’s best intentions to make poll access as flexible as possible under the circumstances, the whole thing appears to be suffering from the lack of time to make it all happen, which is about zero.

And already there’s been an emergency appeal by the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey asking a court to intervene. The ACLU is reportedly asking the judge to allow affected voters to cast ballots via the Federal Voting Assistance Program.

For all the anecdotal complaints arising on Twitter and elsewhere, there are examples where it appears to have worked for some people:

#njvote: Someone had her mail-in ballot returned YESTERDAY, thought she couldn’t vote. County said scan, send by 8pm. #NJ making it work!

November 6, 2012 10:23 am via webReplyRetweetFavorite

@MeganCarolan

Megan Carolan

Now on to the more troubling reports. There has been at least one report of a bit of malware that may be targeting voters in Sandy-struck areas. As GFI Labs notes, one is a file named electioncard1.exe, which is made to look like a regular document file. It is instead an executable file that contains the Rotinom.b Trojan. And that’s just one of them.